HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS, E. Polk Johnson, three volumes,
Lewis Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1912.  Common version, Vol. III,
pp. 1151-53. [Full page photograph of Mr. Belknap included with bio.]
[Jefferson Co.]

WILLIAM B. BELKNAP--Within the pages of this publication will be found
mention of many of those representative citizens who have been the potent
factors in the development and upbuilding of the city of Louisville, and
among those meriting a place of special distinction is the late William
Burke Belknap.  He was one of the most prominent and influential business
men of the state and a citizen of recognized sterling character.  He held
commanding vantage ground in the confidence and regard of the community in
which were centered for so long a period of years his various and
important business interests.  He was a man of forceful individuality and
played a large part in the business and civic affairs of the Kentucky
metropolis, with whose annals the family name has been most conspicuously
identified, both through his own life and labors and those of his sons. The
career of Mr. Belknap illustrated in a very marked degree the power of
concentrating the resources of the entire man and lifting them to the plane
of high achievement; of supplementing unusual natural endowments by close
application and marked tenacity of purpose.  Along the lines in which he
directed his energies and abilities Mr. Belknap made of success not an
accident but a logical result.  There is no element of subtlety or
obscurity, no manner of indirection in the record of his life, and so
distinctive and beneficent was his influence in connection with the
material and social progress of his home city and state that it is
altogether proper that in this work he entered a tribute to his memory.
     William Burke Belknap was born in Brimfield, Hampden county,
Massachusetts, on the 17th of May, 1811, and was a son of Morris Burke
Belknap and Phoebe Locke (Thompson) Belknap, the former of whom died at
Smithland, Livingston county, Kentucky, on the 26th of July, 1837.  The
latter passed the evening of her life at DeWitt, Arkansas, where her death
occurred on the 5th of February, 1873.  Morris Burke Belknap was born in
South Brimfield, Massachusetts, on the 25th of June, 1780, and was a son
of William Belknap, who was the only son of Joseph and Mary (Morris)
Belknap.  William Belknap was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, about the
year 1740, and he was twice married, his first union having been with
Elizabeth McNaul, who died soon after her marriage.  He later wedded Anne
Burke, and they became the parents of one son and six daughters.  Joseph
Belknap, father of William, was a son of Samuel Belknap, who removed from
the vicinity of Lynn, Massachusetts, and settled at Brimfield colony, in
a locality then known as the Holland district.  He there secured a large
tract of land around Holland pond and on the Quinebaug river.  His wife
was an aunt of Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Samuel Belknap was one of the four sons of Abraham Belknap and he settled
at Malden, Massachusetts, whence he finally removed to Haverhill, that
colony, where he took the oath of fidelity on the 28th of November 1677.
His father was the founder of the family in America, whither he came from
Liverpool, England, in 1635 or 1637.  He first settled at Lynn,
Massachusetts, from which place he later removed to the historic old town
of Salem, where his death occurred in the year 1643.
     Morris Burke Belknap, father of the subject of this memoir, was the
founder of the western branch of the family.  In 1807 he left Brimfield,
Massachusetts, and made his way to Ohio.  He located in the old town of
Marietta, that state, and it may fairly be said that he was one of the
pioneers in the development of the iron industry west of the Alleghany
[sic] mountains.  From Ohio he removed to Pennsylvania, and he established
his residence in Pittsburg [sic] in the year 1816.  At this time was
virtually initiated his successful career in connection with the iron
industry.  There he applied his theoretical knowledge to the practical
development of the line of enterprise mentioned and it was due to his
progressive ideas and well directed efforts that some of the first rolling
mills were built in Pittsburg [sic].  In 1827 he made an extended trip
through the ore fields of the Cumberland and Tennessee river district, and
on horseback he made a careful exploration of this region.  He appreciated
the advantages here offered and, after enlisting requisite capital, he
erected furnaces in Stewart county, Tennessee, and later at Nashville,
that state.  He died in Kentucky, as already noted in this context, and
his name merits special prominence on the roster of those through whose
constructive and initiative abilities was compassed the development of the
great iron industry of the United States.
     William Burke Belknap, whose name introduces this review, was reared
in the city of Pittsburg [sic], where he was afforded the advantages of a
well conducted private school, and he early gained experience in connection
with the practical affairs of life.  When he was but sixteen years of age
his father instructed him to assume charge of the transporting of the
family's household effects from Pittsburg [sic] to Tennessee, and also to
secure new machinery for the iron furnace which the father had established
in Tennessee, where he was located at the time.  The boy selected the
equipment required, and loaded the same, together with the household goods,
on a flatboat, on which the family proceeded down the Ohio river.  At
Louisville, where no canal had yet been constructed, it became necessary
to unload the heavy machinery, which was carted through the city to a
point below the falls and then reloaded on the boat at Shippingport. After
having been associated with his father in his iron operations for three
years Mr. Belknap, who was then nineteen years of age, decided to undertake
his independent business career.  With the consent of his father he severed
his relations with the latter's affairs and proceeded to Hickman, Fulton
county, Kentucky, a place then known as Mill's Point, on the Mississippi
river.  There he began a trading or general merchandise business, in which
he soon became associated with two other young men.  They established
branches at Moscow and Vicksburg, and soon developed a prosperous trading
business on the river.  Serious financial reverses were encountered by
the firm, however, in the great panic of 1837, and this resulted in virtual
bankruptcy.  Mr. Belknap has none of the elements of impassivity or
inaction, and his reverses but spurred him to renewed effort.  In 1840,
after having visited St. Louis and Cincinnati, as well as Louisville, he
determined to establish his home in the city last mentioned--a decision
which he never had cause to regret.  Here he engaged in business as agent
for the firm of G. K. and J. H. Shoenberger, of Pittsburg [sic],
manufacturers of nails and boiler plate.  In 1847 he became associated
with Captain Thomas C. Coleman in the purchase of a rolling mill at the
foot of Brook street, and here they became successful manufacturers of
bar iron, building up a large and substantial enterprise, with which Mr.
Belknap continued to be actively identified for many years.  This mill was
long in operation and the structure remained on the original site until
1880, when it was razed.
     In the meanwhile Mr. Belknap had established an individual enterprise
as an extensive dealer in iron and heavy hardware, and this business he
conducted under the title of W. B. Belknap & Company.  His associate was
his brother, the late Morris Locke Belknap.  William B. Belknap eventually
purchased his brother's interest and assumed full control of the business,
from which has been developed the extensive and important concern known
as the Belknap Hardware & Manufacturing Company--probably the largest of
its kind in the entire South.  The enterprise has been wholesale in its
functions from the beginning, in connection with the manufacturing depart-
ment, and in the development of the same Mr. Belknap made a magnificent
contribution to the prestige and importance of Louisville as an industrial
and commercial center.  He became one of the most influential factors in
local business circles and his civic ideals were as high as were his
business talents exceptional.  He gave his influence and tangible
cooperation in the fostering and upbuilding of a number of other important
industrial and business enterprises in his home city, and for some time
he served as president of the Southern Bank of Louisville, subsequently
the Citizens' Bank, and whose successor is the Citizens' National Bank.
     Mr. Belknap was a man of broad mental ken and impregnable integrity
in all the relations of life.  He honored Louisville and the state of
Kentucky through his able and worthy services as a citizen and business
man, and though he never sought publicity and was essentially
unostentatious and democrat in his attitude, he wielded more influence of
beneficent order than have many who have come more prominently before the
public eye.  He achieved large success and won it by worthy means, and he
ever maintained a high sense of his stewardship.  He was at all times
ready to co-operate in the promotion of those undertakings that conserved
the general welfare of the community, and upon the record of his long,
active and useful career there rests no shadow of wrong or injustice.
Though never permitting the use of his name in connection with candidacy
for political office, he gave a staunch allegiance to the cause of his
convictions, and his religious faith was that of the Unitarian church, to
the various departments of whose work he was a liberal contributor.  His
widow, who will celebrate her ninetieth birthday anniversary on June 11,
1911, is a charter member of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian church, and
has been a prominent factor in church and benevolent activities in the
city of her adoption, where she is well known and where she is held in
reverent affection by all who have come within the sphere of her gracious
influence.  Mr. Belknap was summoned to the life eternal on the 24th day
of February, 1889, and, now that he rests from his labors, it may well be
said that "His works do follow him."
     In the year 1843 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Belknap to Miss
Mary Richardson, who was born in the city of Lexington, Kentucky, on the
11th of June, 1821, and who is a daughter of William Richardson, who became
one of the leading bankers and most influential citizens of Louisville,
where he held for a number of years prior to his demise the office of
president of the Northern Bank of Kentucky.

Belknap Locke Thompson Morris McNaul Shoenberger Coleman Richardson Morris
Burke
=
Smithland-Livingston-KY Hickman-Fulton-KY Lexington-Fayette-KY
Brimfield-Hampden-MA Stewart-TN AR OH PA England

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/jefferson/belknap.wb.txt